


Sins of Our Fathers

by tjs_whatnot



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, First War with Voldemort, Hurt/Comfort, Love/Hate, M/M, Romance, Slash, The Quidditch Pitch: The Changing Room
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-11-19
Updated: 2007-11-19
Packaged: 2018-10-27 07:49:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10804905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tjs_whatnot/pseuds/tjs_whatnot
Summary: James Potter wants to be a good man but thinks spending a whole summer alone with his arch-enemy is more than he can take.





	Sins of Our Fathers

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).
> 
>  **Author's notes:** Perhaps slightly AU, or more specifically, bending of flimsy canon to my will.

 

James Potter was not a happy man as the Hogwarts Express pulled into the station at King’s Cross Station. He had just finished his last year of school and was ready to begin life as a fully trained wizard. He had finally convinced the only girl he’d ever loved that he was a man of quality and not an insensitive, bullying git. They had had plans for the summer. He had been finally going to meet her family, and they were going to go into training with Alastor Moody, the best Auror there was. 

With one owl from home, all of his summer plans had been changed. His mother had sold the last of their Thestral herd to Hogwarts, and she needed him to move them from their current home in the Potter Ranch outside of Godric’s Hollow to the school where Hagrid would be waiting. The male and juvenile Thestrals had already flown, but since spring was when pregnant Thestrals gave birth and the babies couldn’t fly their first year, they needed to be moved, not unlike common cattle. 

James loathed this job, loathed the boredom of it, the back-breaking frustrations, but mostly he loathed that he was qualified for the job.  

He had grown up surrounded by Thestral, but the irony of a livelihood sustained on something he could never see was lost on him—until he began to see them. James had been fifteen when he watched his father fall and never got back up.  

After that, two things had been made clear to young James Potter: one, why his father had never wanted him to work on the ranch, had never wanted that life for his son and two, that there was no where that was safe, no where that evil couldn’t find him.  

Last summer, he had worked with the man who had been his father’s ranch hand for years. His mother had promised him that it would be his last. He had believed her; he had spent the year preparing for a life that wasn’t a daily reminder of his father and what had been lost. 

James stepped off the train for what would be the last time and looked around as all the underage witches and wizards found their families. All the of-age students had Apparated to their adulthood; he had been forced to take the train. He was definitely _not_ happy.    

                                    ~~~~~

Mrs. Potter was waiting for him as he got off the train. At the look of her frail, sad appearance, he put away the scowl he had been wearing since saying good-bye to all his friends and his fiancée Lily Evans at Hogsmeade station. Lily had gone home to prepare for their wedding that winter. His best mates Sirius Black and Remus Lupin were off to some grand adventure with Alastor and their former headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.  

They had been introduced to Alastor when Dumbledore started teaching a few select seventh years Advanced Defense Against the Dark Arts. James and his friends had been honored to be included. There was even talk of their possible induction to a secret society. Dumbledore had convinced them that a war was waging and an extensive knowledge of the Dark Arts would be absolutely necessary. 

James had hated the Dark Arts for most of his life, but everything had changed when his father died. He had begun to see what was happening in the wizarding world, had begun to see sides forming, the world being divided into those who were prepared and those who were dead. He wanted to be prepared.  

“James, it’s so good to see you,” Mrs. Potter said, taking her son who towered over her, into her weak embrace. 

“It’s good to see you too,” he answered, then despite himself, added, “I could have seen you hours ago if you’d have let me Apparate.” He kicked himself for snapping at her. That was not the way he wanted to begin his life as an adult. 

But she waved away the comment and ignored the tone. “Kids today with their popping around in such a hurry. The world was meant to be _seen,_ son. Besides, we have to pick up the boy I’ve hired to help you this summer.” 

“What? What boy?” James asked. 

She looked over James’s shoulder. “Oh, here he comes.” 

James turned around. The one person who could make his summer worse was making his way toward them. James turned back to his mother. 

“Snivellus? You hired Snivellus Snape?” 

She looked confused. “I thought his name was Severus.” 

James didn’t have time to voice his outrage properly before Snape was upon them, saying with his usual snarl, “Mrs. Potter. James.” 

“Snape,” James said with his own snarl. 

Mrs. Potter looked from Snape to her son. “Oh good, you know each other. Well, come along both of you. We’ll have to flag the Knight Bus.”  

James and Snape walked as far apart as possible and still be technically in the same train station. 

“Mother, what were you thinking?” James whispered. 

“What? What have I done?” 

James was incapable of hiding his derision. “Oh, I don’t know, gave a job to the man I hate most in this world, a job that required me to spend all summer alone in his presence?” 

The sweet, old, tottering persona of Mrs. Potter changed instantly as she turned on her whiny child. He shrank; never before had the look she was giving been used on him, her only beloved child. 

“What would you have me do?” she began in a loud whisper, trying to avoid causing a public spectacle. “You wouldn’t let me ask any of your friends, so I had to put an ad in the Daily Prophet, and he was the only applicant that had the qualifications for the job.” 

He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, but she wasn’t finished. “As for his status as your-least-favorite-person-in-the-world, first of all, he must not share in this or why would he have agreed to take the job? Secondly, how was I supposed to know you two weren’t friends? You have barely talked to me about anything since your fa—” 

She couldn’t continue; she had never been able to say the word as far as James knew. It was a topic they both weren’t ready to talk about. He had avoided the discussion by avoiding her. 

He looked down at his feet and mumbled his apologies.  

Noticing that Snape was now waiting at the entrance for them, he wondered about what his mother had said. Why _had_ Snape taken this job? He knew they would be working together. Maybe Lily was right, he thought, maybe it was time to grow up and move on. 

_Or maybe not,_ James reconsidered as he approached and Snape gave one of his patented sneers.   

The Knight Bus ride was surprisingly uneventful. James and Snape sipped their tea quietly and kept their scowls to a minimum for the sake of Mrs. Potter, who began filling them in on the responsibilities they would be sharing. 

Last summer, James had done this job with Pierre, who was an old timer and had been working for the Potter family for decades. Sirius had been there too, and it had been a goof. After working all day, they would wait for the boss to doze off, then they would Apparate to Hogsmeade and carouse all night. Remus would join them occasionally, and once a month, they would transform and spend their nights chasing after their werewolf friend. 

This summer, there was no boss other than him, and his best friends were replaced with the person he most loathed. 

It was going to be a long summer. 

It was dusk when they stepped off the bus, and James looked to the place he had called home. For the first eighteen years of his life, he had lived in the big house in the clearing, and fifteen of those years had been nothing if not blissful. Happy family, parents who loved each other and loved him unconditionally. Now, he was going to start his own family right across the lake. If he survived the summer. 

“Well this explains a lot.” James heard from behind him as Snape picked up his bags and walked past him to the cheerfully painted, overly large house. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” James asked. Snape didn’t reply, he didn’t even turn around. “Well sorry, Snivellus, we all can’t live in dark, rodent-infested hovels.” James grumbled at the retreating figure. 

                                                       ~~~~~  

Before the sun had risen the next morning, James was roused out of his sleep by his mother with promises of a large warm breakfast—the last one cooked by someone who knew what they were doing for the whole summer. 

James was wearing dragon hide chaps over his faded jeans and a plain white t-shirt under his long, brown leather riding jacket.   

James sputtered out the tea he had begun to drink when Snape walked into the kitchen. “What are you wearing?”  

Snape had on his customary black, stained robes, buttoned up to hide whatever it was he needed to hide. The only change in his wardrobe was black riding boots, and instead of his long, greasy hair in his face, it was pulled back and tied with a strap.  

Snape looked down, and James had never seen him look so self-conscious; the look unnerved him. But then James reasoned that it must be because he had never really seen Snape’s face before; that had to be it. James was beginning to see why Snape always kept his hair in his face; it hid those eyes that clearly portrayed that Snape did, in fact, have emotions. 

Thankfully, just before he really started to feel sorry for the man—which was one of his least favorite things to do—Mrs. Potter looked up from the stove.  

“Oh honey, no. That won’t do.” She directed her cooking to serve itself while she motioned for Snape to follow her. “We have some riding gear of James’s father’s that should fit you.” 

The idea of Snivelus Snape wearing his dead father’s clothes was upsetting, but there was more than that unsettling him as this arrangement got stranger and stranger.  

“Mother,” James began when Mrs. Potter returned to the kitchen. “You told me he was the most qualified applicant. What exactly are his qualifications if he doesn’t even know how to dress?”   

She put her hands on her thin hips. “He can see them and…and…he was the only person to apply.” She turned away. 

James looked down at his lukewarm tea. He should have taken the responsibility of finding and hiring help himself. She should have never had to think of these things in her deceased husband’s absence. What sort of son was he anyway? 

“Sorry,” he mumbled. They began to eat in silence as they waited for Snape to return. 

When he finally did, James had to fight hard not to spit out his tea again. Any thought of the oddity of his father’s clothes on anyone else was gone. They didn’t look like any clothes he’d ever seen on his father. 

He had never imagined his father as a small man. And it goes without saying that he had never, ever imagined what Snape hid with long robes. But the tightness of the chaps told James that Snape had been doing some heavy lifting since the days of being exposed upside down all those years ago. It wasn’t the bulk, because he was still a bit stringy; it was the definition of the muscles that shocked James. 

Obviously not used to the way chaps rubbed at certain places, Snape sat uncomfortable at the table. James smiled to himself and then covered it with a cough. “We’re ready to go as soon as you’re finished with breakfast. I’ll go ready the domestics.” 

James walked to the stables and whinnied softly at the two Thestrals that he and his father had trained to use as riding animals. 

Snape joined him a half an hour later and wordlessly began loading a Thestral with his sleeping roll, supplies and a few changes of borrowed clothes. All compacted magically to hold a summer’s worth of provisions easily and stored in the saddlebags. 

“You have ridden a Thestral before, haven’t you?” James asked. 

Snape looked highly affronted. “Of course I have.” 

For a moment, James doubted him and began to probe Snape’s mind to detect the truth. It, of course, was locked tight. Then he remembered Snape might have his faults—many, many faults—but as far as James knew, lying was not one of them. Besides, it didn’t really matter if Snape was a novice or not; he was stuck with him either way. 

They rode side by side to the large paddock where about fifty nervous mothers and their anxious brood were pawing the earth and eager to embark. 

“Lead them out,” James instructed, “and I’ll bring up the stragglers then we’ll switch.” 

Snape did what he was told without a word. 

James hoped it would continue to be this easy, but he didn’t trust his luck that much.  

After only a few days, he was begrudgingly impressed though to how fast Snape learned the rhythm of the job. 

One of them would ride behind the herd, making sure none got left behind, while the other would fly ahead in a large circle, keeping watch on the terrain and any runaway Thestrals. Then they would report back and change positions. There was no snarling and bickering, no scathing sarcasm back and forth. 

One night, while James set up camp and Snape began to gather fire wood, James wondered if it were possible for this experience to not be as bad as he had supposed. 

“So, Snape,” James began after they had finished their dinner and were sharing a jug of pumpkin juice, “who snuffed it in front of you?” 

Snape’s beady eyes shot across the dying embers. He stood up and threw his drink into the fire. “Piss off, Potter.” 

James laughed to himself; no, it would be _that_ bad. 

The next week, conversation was extremely limited, but they attempted to be polite at least. James didn’t try to engage Snape in dialogue anymore, and Snape didn’t curse him out for anything.  

In fact, James began to notice Snape watching him at odd times through the day. Excusing it as Snape’s way of learning the ropes, James wasn’t bothered by it. It was not like when they were in school, and James would feel the pierce of Snape’s hate-filled gaze. These glances, supposedly unnoticed, weren’t malicious at all, and James found himself almost intrigued by the eyes on him.   

                                                     ~~~~~

Another week passed before James broached the subject of Snape’s ability to see Thestrals; this time, he tried a different tactic. “I couldn’t see them until two years ago.” 

James shot a glance at Snape who was studying the fire between them as if it were the most fascinating phenomenon. James continued, “But one night, my mother sent me to the local pub to collect my father. Usually, she didn’t worry about him; my father was a good man. But, well, he had a friend, Henry, his best mate actually, and my mother never trusted this man. Never trusted my father spending too much time with him. Henry was always in trouble and my father—well, my father could never say no, could never turn his back on him. Would die for him—quite literally as it turned out.” 

James hadn’t meant to say this much; he had meant to give the condensed version as a way to get Snape talking. But Snape’s silence had allowed James to look back at the painful moment. He continued: 

“I arrived at Merlin’s Menagerie at the exact moment that a heated argument over something probably ridiculous turned fatal. I turned the corner to the alleyway as green flames shot through the darkness. The first thing I saw wasn’t the flash of an unforgivable curse; it was the sight of my father jumping in front of it to block his friend. 

James was no longer sitting at a fire across from a man he had loathed three weeks ago. He was standing in that alleyway watching his father’s last breath and wishing it was his own as well. 

“If I had been two minutes later, my father would still have been dead, but I would have never seen Thestrals,” James said in a whisper, not speaking to Snape now at all, not even realizing that he was no longer on the other side of the fire but had moved to sit right beside him. 

“But that’s not the thought that robs me of sleep and haunts ever moment. It’s this: If I had been two minutes earlier, I wouldn’t see them because I would have…could have…” 

The arm on his shoulder was the first indication that someone else was there, and it shocked him, but when he turned to look at Snape and realized that he was blurred and fuzzy, James was even more shocked to discover that he had been crying. James couldn’t see the expression on Snape’s face, but his own self-loathing at breaking down in front of anyone—but especially Snape—made him recoil. 

He swiped Snape’s hand off and stood violently, turning to wipe away the tears. 

The crackling of the fire and the mewing of the tired Thestrals were the only sounds, but James knew that Snape had risen; James could feel Snape’s eyes on him, and in that instant, James self-loathing turned outward. 

He waited for Snape to say something, to provoke him, but the silence continued. James took a few angry breaths then turned. “What?” he growled.  

Snape looked startled, and his eyes held something that confused and then angered James—pity. How dare he. 

“I…I…” Snape began, as if he didn’t know what came next. 

“Is this satisfying to you? Are you enjoying this?” 

Snape eyes cleared as if waking, and the expression that had angered James was gone, replaced with a look James knew too well—hatred. 

“Seeing the great, powerful Potter reduced to tears, to see the human in the bravado? Yes, deeply satisfying.” 

Snape turned to walk away. James pulled out his wand, not ready to end this just yet. 

Snape remained standing with his back turned but he didn’t walk away. He also didn’t go for his own wand but, instead, with a sneer in his voice, said, “Yes, there’s the James Potter I know. You did always like to strike your enemies when their backs were turned.” 

“Well, then, turn around and face me like a man,” James spat. 

Snape barked a cruel laugh as he turned, still wandless. “You wouldn’t know what a _man_ looked like if he walked up and bit you.” 

James watched him in astonishment. Snape’s eyes were toying with him, mocking him; his demeanor was condescendingly calm, as if he were enjoying himself. Nonchalantly, he took his wand out, twirled it in his hand then prepared himself to duel in an exaggerated, almost teasing stance. 

And in that instant, James forgot why it was that he was so angry. It wasn’t just that he could now see Snape’s eyes, and it wasn’t just that Snape was no longer a shy, little weakling that James had gotten sick pleasure from abusing in the past. It was all of that and something else: Snape was no longer the boy he had hated for so long; he was a _man_ that James didn’t even know.  James put his wand in his belt and held up his hands in surrender.  

Snape misread him and smiling, tossed his wand aside as well. “I agree, Potter. This fight has been brewing way too long, and the use of wands with this sort of animosity might cause one of us to perform an Unforgivable.”  

Snape smiled sinisterly, leaving James with no question to which one of them would have been performing the curse. He also left no doubt in James’s mind that Snape had been waiting for this moment. 

“No friends to fight for you, no Dumbledore to protect you, just you and I. Do you think you can handle it?” 

In that one question of his manhood, the old rage—the rage that had been on the surface since his father’s death, when his friends weren’t there to keep it in check—rose and spread throughout him. He ran and wrapped Snape around the waist and they both fell. Before James could strike, Snape had wiggled his way from under him and was somehow on top of him, pinning James so that he couldn’t move. 

Feeling Snape’s breath on the back of his neck, James heard him say, “You’ve never fought like a Muggle have you?” 

James refused to answer. Of course not. He was a proper wizard. He didn’t resort to Muggle tactics such as grabbing people and throwing them around. That’s what wands and magic were for.  

James discovered, to his horror, that he could not force Snape off of him. James’s lack of experience and the fact that he had allowed himself to be positioned in such a way to make movement impossible were disadvantages that he could not struggle against. His only defense was to wait until Snape’s over-confidence grew, and he let his guard down. 

But as he lay there with Snape’s hot breath on his neck, he felt something grow and get hard against his tailbone. At the same time, he was horrified to realize his own member was becoming stiff and digging painfully into the soil below him. 

Self-disgust and burning rage ignited inside him simultaneously, and in a moment of fiery unconsciousness, he transformed into his animal form. 

In that instant when thoughts of consequences and every action having a reaction fled, he bucked. The desire to escape was replaced with a need to stomp out what made him feel the way he did, made him commit this careless, reckless act. 

It happened in a flash of images: Snape’s look of horror; James bucking, rearing on his hind legs, knocking Snape to the ground; Snape covering his head with his hands but not hiding the confused terror in those eyes. Those eyes that James couldn’t look at anymore. 

When those eyes were finally shut against him, and Snape no longer moved, James’s anger was finally abated, and he was left with thin sheath of guilty sweat and nothing _but_ consequences. Transforming and, with shaking hands, he checked for a pulse on Snape’s bloody and broken body. It was faint, but it was there. 

His first thought was to Apparate them both to St. Mungo’s. He put his arm on Snape’s to transport them, and the feeling, the sensation of Snape on top of him, hardening against him, overcame all else, and he couldn’t move. What would he say to the healers at St. Mungo’s? How would he explain Snape’s injuries? Again, he was washed over with self-loathing, this time accompanied by cowardice as well. 

Snape’s eyes fluttered and his lips parted, blood dribbling down his chin. 

“Levicorpus,” James said, holding his wand over Snape’s body. 

Walking as fast as he could with Snape hovering in front of him, he went to Snape’s tent and undid the flaps to allow the body to float in. It wasn’t until he got him placed on his cot that James looked around the dark, depressingly cold and impersonal tent. Echoing Snape’s remark on James’s house, he said aloud to himself, “Well, this explains a lot.” 

Wiping the sweat off his forehead, James knelt before Snape and began to attend to his wounds.  He concentrated on the facial wounds first, stopping the nose bleed and putting Snape’s jaw back in place. 

James was horrified by what the animal in him had done as he removed Snape’s clothes and saw the broken bones and on his chest—right in the middle of his breast plate—a hoof-shaped indention that as he went about the healing, James couldn’t get to go away. 

After he mended what he could, he sat beside Snape and watched him breath, hoping there would be no permanent damage. James watched the outline of Snape’s ribs show through and saw his abdomen concave with each release of labored breath. It was true that Snape had bulked up a bit in the years since James had gotten great amusement by humiliating his sinewy physic, but he still had that mistreated, sallow look to him. 

During school, that was just another thing that had set them apart, made him different, but now, he wondered about it. How could someone who had spent the last seven years—ten months at a time, being fed three meals, given a comfortable bed to sleep in—look this dejected and maltreated?   

For the first time in his life, he wondered what Snape’s home life was like; for the first time, James wondered about him as a person.  

                                                ~~~~~

Throughout the night, Snape didn’t wake but began moaning in his unconsciousness. It wasn’t until the sun was rising outside the tent that his eyes began to flutter. 

“My father, too,” Snape panted hoarsely. 

James, who was sitting opposite Snape in a painfully uncomfortable chair trying to stay awake, shot up and went to Snape’s bedside. “What?” 

“Thestrals…my father…see them…” Snape muttered, answering a question James hadn’t gotten the chance to ask again. 

“How did he die?” James asked, not just because he was curious, but to keep Snape talking. 

“I killed him,” Snape whispered before falling back into a silent sleep. 

James had a fitful slumber sitting beside Snape’s bed. They both spent the next day in and out of consciousness, with James waking every time he heard a noise. 

Toward midnight, James woke with a start to find Snape looking at him with peaceful, serene eyes. 

“How are you?” James whispered. 

“What happened?” Snape asked in return, his voice scratchy. 

James conjured up some water and, holding Snape’s head gingerly, brought the cup to his lips. James wiped Snape’s mouth with his own shirttails when Snape was done. James did all of this to avoid answering that question. If Snape didn’t remember James’s transformation, James certainly wasn’t going to remind him that his unregistered Animagi had almost kicked him to death.  

“What do you remember?” 

James watched Snape struggle with his memory. “The last thing I remember is sitting by the fire, you were telling a story, then…a struggle. Did we fight?” 

“Yes,” James mumbled. 

Snape watched him as if still trying to remember. James forced himself not to look away, to take his punishment like a man.

 “Did a Thestral get involved?” Snape asked. 

“Why do you ask that?” “I have an image, a flickering of a picture, but there was hooves and stamping and…was that what happened?” 

_It was too easy,_ James thought as he swallowed his guilt and nodded. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. 

Further talk was unnecessary; Snape had fallen back asleep. James continued to watch him sleep, as if paying some penance that he alone knew about.  

During the next few days, if James wasn’t keeping the herd appeased on their lack of movement, he was in Snape’s tent appeasing his own mounting self-loathing. As much as his remonstrations to his own weak character hurt, it was better than the thought that crept in when he couldn’t stop his mind from wondering. When his mind slipped back to what had happened before his near- fatal transformation—the feel of Snape’s breathing on his neck, the feel of him on top of him, that loathsome, vile tightening in his stomach—it led to thoughts he couldn’t even process.  

As he watched Snape’s breathing, he wondered about the ways that Snape had been watching him, not just the last month but their school years too. James had gotten used to people watching him at school. It had come with being good at anything he did and being handsome. It didn’t hurt that he was always accompanied by two other men much more striking than he. His best friend Sirius would always have admiring stares, and his friend Remus was beautiful for another reason. The mystery of him, the things people were sure he was hiding had many girls at Hogwarts interested. Being studied by men, though, was something that James hadn’t got use to—well, besides Peter—but that had stopped being creepy long ago. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” 

James jumped. He hadn’t realized that Snape’s eyes were open and that he had been caught. By the look of concern in Snape’s eyes, James wondered what his own look had conveyed.  

“Was I talking in my sleep?” Snape asked. 

“No. Why?” James asked. 

“Sometimes I do…and you…you looked scared.” 

James first instinct was to rebuke, _Me, scared of you?_ but he couldn’t. Truth was—he was scared. But of course he lied. “No, I was just wondering.” 

“What about?” 

“I think we should take you to St. Mungo’s. I need to move the herd, and these wounds should have begun to mend by now. I think you need more care than I am capable of.” 

Snape struggled with his coverings in an attempt to sit up. “Let me help you,” James said going to help him. Snape tensed at James’s touch, and James smiled, taking it as a sign of Snape’s returning health.  

“I don’t need…” Snape began, but then slumped as if just then noticing his weakened condition. “Fine. Help me up. I think I can create a potion to speed up the healing process. I just need the ingredients and a cauldron.” 

James hunched down beside Snape’s prone body and took Snape’s arm, draped it around his shoulder and heaved Snape up. After a moment of wavering balance, Snape stood, and, together, they walked over to a table. James deposited him in a chair before retrieving Snape’s potions kit and cauldron. 

As James watched Snape work, it was like he was watching a transformation, almost as if the act of creation was the healing itself. Snape seemed to shut himself off as he caressed each vile and bottle, searching for the ones he needed.  Organizing them, he began to measure his ingredients, not with a scale and cup but with his hands alone; placing each component in his palm and hefting, thinking, adding, subtracting. 

James was mesmerized as Snape continued, stirring slowly, almost lazily one way and then the other. Rhyme and reason escaped James but seemed calculated and yet instinctual to Snape as he hovered, pain seemingly forgotten, murmuring to his potion, almost singing to it.  

James excused himself for a bit of fresh air to hopefully clear his mind. 

                                                 ~~~~~

Hours later, as the sun was beginning to set and James was starting a fire to prepare food, Snape emerged from his tent. He was still slow and looked pained, but he was walking on his own and seemed to be on the mend. They sat in silence as James served them dinner, and they ate. 

Finally, Snape broke the silence, “I guess I owe you two life debts now.” 

James choked on a piece of roll. As he fought for breath, he also begged feebly for death.  

Pointing his wand at James and muttering a spell, Snape dislodged the food from James throat. After coughing, James got out, “Call us even.” 

Snape studied him, and James once again wondered what those eyes saw. They revealed nothing. 

“I should only need one more day before I will be able to ride again. Is that possible?” Snape asked. 

James nodded, his throat still pained. He poured a shot of Firewhisky and drank it down. It burned going down but helped him build his courage to continue a conversation. 

Passing the bottle to Snape, he asked, “So can I ask you something?” 

Snape took it and drank a shot directly from the bottle. “I think you have established that you can.” 

James smirked. “Clever. But what I wanted to ask was, why did you take this job?”  

Thinking for a moment, Snape answered, “Because I needed the money. Why do you think I took it?” 

“No reason. Or, uh, that reason,” James flustered. 

Again Snape studied him, “Did Lily tell you something? Something about me?” 

Now James was truly flustered. “What? What would she say about you taking the job?” 

Snape took another swallow of the Firewhisky. “Nothing. It’s just…well, you know we used to be close. She knows things about me. Things I’ve never told anyone. I would just hate for her to have. To have told you things about me. Things I don’t want to share.” 

James would have laughed at Snape’s muddled speech if he wasn’t so baffled. The conversation had gone to a weird place, and he didn’t know how or why. “No, surprisingly, we don’t discuss you too much.” 

“Yes, I am sure,” Snape said, sounding rather sad. He passed the bottle back to James, who filled his glass before returning it. 

“So can…I mean, _may_ I ask you something else?” James said. The conversation was odd already, so he figured he could risk it. “When you were healing, you said something about…about your father.” 

“Yes,” Snape said through gritted teeth. “And what is your question?” 

“Well, how? I mean, you said… you said you killed him…” 

Snape watched him struggle with his words and did nothing to make it easier. Finally, James gave up, and only then did Snape take another drink and say, “You wanted to know how I killed him? Why it had to be done?” 

“Yes.” James answered, taking his own swallow. 

Snape thought for a moment, probably figuring what it would cost him to share this story. He must have thought the price worth paying, he began to talk. 

“There are things that I could tell you that you would never understand, things about suffering, about witnessing atrocities as a child and not having the strength or power to stop it. It is not a deficiency that you know nothing of these things, rather a luxury you should revel in. But to understand why I did what I did, you have to imagine these things.  

“Imagine being born into a family where the Muggle man you call father despises what you and your mother are. Imagine the life he wants to give his family and the struggle he endured to give them it, only to discover that it was easily gotten with powers he had not. Imagine how that would eat away at a person until they lashed out, became stronger by making those around them weaker. Can you imagine that?” 

Not trusting his voice, James just nodded. 

“A small child can do little to protect the suffering of those around them. Especially a child told from infancy that he was nothing and would accomplish nothing. He can wallow and shrink or he could find ways to get what he needs and become who he wants to be. I floundered with the first option for a very long time. Then I meet someone who made me believe that I was capable, that there were things I could do to improve my environment.” 

“Lily?” James whispered, not wanting to break the spell that had Snape talking. 

“Yes, Lily. I know what she is to you, but I don’t think you have any idea what she was to me. Another deficiency I envy you for. What it’s like to thirst so heartily for companionship of any kind that you would do anything to protect it, to live up to it. To live up to it, I had to learn to stand up to those who terrorized me.” 

“Me?” James again whispered. 

Snape looked at him, eyes glazed. “Not you. Not yet. In your world, you must assume that you are truly important as a tormentor, but be assured; you have nothing on my father. Sirius’s tauntings and juvenile leg pulling has nothing on what I endured on my holidays. Run-ins with werewolves were the least of my problems.   

“What I needed was power. The strength to search it out and the courage to use it once obtained.” 

“That’s what Voldemort is to you?” James asked, not believing they were having this conversation, that Snape was allowing the conversation, or that he, James Potter, was allowing the somewhat condescending tone in Snape’s voice. But it was honest, and it was captivating, and James wouldn’t have it any other way. 

Again Snape’s eyes found James’s and studied him. “Yes, that is what Voldemort is to me. He gave me what Lily only hinted that I deserved, but she lost faith in me before assisting me in attaining. I don’t blame her; she had her own life and new friends, and we did what people with different backgrounds and goals did: we drifted apart. She choice her new friends and I choose mine.” 

“But Death Eaters?” 

“You have Marauders; I have Death Eaters. I admit, your gang has a better, more inconspicuous title, but in the essentials, they are both a gang of hoodlums. Varying degrees and shades of grey and what not, but those contemplations are for another time. I will ponder my choices when unsavory things are asked of me. This has not been the case as of yet. Can you say the same?”  

James couldn’t. Not because he thought any of those things were true, but because he was mesmerized, almost hypnotized. The silence all around them and Snape’s smoothly rhythmic baritone was lulling James into a stupor. Almost as if Snape were a lodestone pulling James slowly towards Snape’s side of the fire. 

“So your father?” James whispered. 

“Oh yes, the climax of this story. Where was I? Right, torture and abuse.” He took another long pull on the bottle. “Getting that Hogwarts letter was the best day of my life. I was getting away; I would be free. With the selfishness of a child, I thought nothing of my mother’s suffering or what her life would be like. I guess if I did think about it, I would have thought that they would both be better off without me. I might have convinced myself that the reason he was so angry with her was because of her devotion to me. I would have been mistaken of course. 

“The summers were torturous for my mother and I. He was growing angrier and angrier with each new discovery of magic in his presence. My mother had done a good job of denying her true self and burying the magic within her. I refused. I was punished. My mother defended me to the Ministry when they came calling to investigate the use of magic. She took the blame. But she couldn’t defend me from him, neither could the Ministry. They would come, reprimand me and ignore the black eye and arm sling. What were Muggle beatings when there was underage magic afoot?” 

The bitter snarl that James had come to associate with Snape had returned finally as he spat out the end of his tale. 

“After my fifth year—you remember the things that happened in our fifth year—I had had enough. I came home and began demanding respect. That was my first mistake. Raising my wand to my father was my second. Sometime in the night while I slept, the curse I had thrown on him had worn off. I woke up to the sound of the snap of my wand in my ear. There was a struggle, and I don’t remember much of what happened after that. When I recovered my memory, my father was dead, and I was bloodied and broken.” 

There was a long silence, and it was then that James realized that somewhere during this story, he had wound up beside Snape, and then, there at the end, he found his hand in the most unlikely place—on Snape’s shoulder. He squeezed, and Snape looked over at him. There were no tears in this story, but there was sadness and determination and then a flicker of humor that shocked James. 

“Wasn’t this how we got in trouble last time we were around a fire?” 

It took a moment for this statement’s meaning to penetrate James. “You remember?” 

James couldn’t remove his hand or his eyes as his heart beat faster and faster, and Snape’s face came closer for some unconceivable reason. And then Snape’s lips were on his, lightly brushing against them, tasting them; his tongue timidly finding entrance. The taste of Firewhisky on Snape’s tongue woke James’s own tongue, and he began to return the kiss, not allowing other thoughts to enter his mind. 

“Yes, I remember everything,” Snape said, pulling away for only a moment then returning to James’s waiting lips. 

James moved his hand unconsciously from Snape’s shoulder to wrap himself around him. Moving his mouth to Snape’s ear, he whispered, “I’m sorry.” 

Snape stood up, and James felt empty. But then Snape reached his hand out for James to take. He took it, and Snape walked them to his tent. About half way there, James stopped. “Snape, I don—” 

Snape came to stand in front of him. “You don’t want to?”  

James looked at those eyes that told him everything, hid nothing, and he _wanted_ them watching him. He didn’t know anything else he wanted, but he wanted that. Taking his hand to Snape’s face, he caressed the line of Snape’s chin with his thumb then to the back of his neck, bringing Snape to him. He didn’t want to think about tomorrow, about after; he just wanted this.  

                                                 ~~~~~

“Say my name,” Snape said, removing James’s shirt. 

James opened his mouth and tried. He couldn’t get the word out, couldn’t concentrate on anything but Snape’s hardened cock exposed and almost quivering in front of him. 

Snape knelt in front of James and pulled down James’s trousers and pants. Now it was James’s own stiff cock that left him speechless. That and Snape who was wetting his lips and moving closer. 

“Say my name,” Snape said again. Then before James could so much as swallow nervously, Snape ran his tongue along the vein in James’s cock. Instead of saying the name, James whimpered. 

The whimper became a long, loud moan that started at the bottom of his throat as Snape took James’s cock into his mouth and sucked gently. James fisted Snape’s hair as Snape swallowed more of him and then still more. 

James’s heart was beating too fast; he thought it was going to stop, but before he died, he needed to say one thing, and right before he felt himself explode, he exhaled, “Severus.” 

Swallowing deeply and then looking up, Severus’s eyes glinted. James fell to his knees and kissed Severus deeply, tasting himself in Severus’s mouth. James ran his hands along Severus’s arms and then his hips, finally taking Severus’s cock in his hand. “Severus,” he whispered. 

Moaning, Severus looked into James’s eyes. “I want to be inside you.” 

James swallowed hard and nodded. “Show me how.” And then, just because he loved the way it sounded on his tongue, “Severus.” 

With gentleness James wouldn’t have imagined Severus was capable of, he laid James out on the bed with his backside exposed. Massaging the tension out of James’s shoulders down to his tailbone, Severus then pulled on James’s hips, bringing his arse into the air. The feeling of relaxation Severus’s hands had previously invoked in James was instantly gone as Severus’s hands spread James’s arse cheeks apart. Fear and excitement fought inside him and caused him to whimper pitifully. 

“Relax. I can’t promise it won’t hurt, but I can almost guarantee that you will forget the pain before you ever forget the pleasure.” 

James nodded and looked over his shoulder. “I trust you.” 

Severus smiled, and James had never seen anything so beatific. Muttering something to his wand, Severus caught a viscous, clear lubricant in his hands. James’s eyes bulged, and he swallowed again, watching Severus coat two of his fingers on his right hand. 

The pain was only unendurable for a moment, a long moment, but only a moment. It was soon replaced with a yearning pleasure that he wanted to go on and on. For a fleeting second, he wondered if this was how it had felt for Lily that first time. Lily. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking of her, but once the thought came into his mind, he couldn’t get it out. It wasn’t until he appeased himself with a thought that made him smile that he was able to let her go. She had always wished for anything that would make her childhood friend happy. If this made Severus happy; she’d have to see some good in it. But, of course, she would never know. He knew he’d have to take this to his grave. 

But, “Oh Severus,” it did feel _so_ good.  

And then Severus was in him, and the pain fired up inside, screamed in every fiber of him. He tried to muffle the sob of pleasurable torture that bubbled in his throat. His control didn’t last long, and the volume of his howl even surprised him. J

ust when James thought he couldn’t take anymore, Severus snaked his free hand around James and grasped his cock. It took only a few strokes before James lost feeling in every bit of his body. He slumped onto the bed, Severus on top of him, still inside him but spent as well. 

                                                ~~~~~

For hours after, they lay wrapped tightly in each other’s arms, dozing on and off, not talking. Finally James broke the silence. “Severus, may I ask you a question?” 

“Sweet Salazar, are you always this inquisitive?” 

James laughed. It was the first laugh with Severus that wasn’t mocking or at Severus’s expense. It felt good. “Sorry, it’s a family trait. The Potters have always been a curious lot.” 

“And you’re marrying Lily Evans, the girl who is never satisfied with any answer? Lord help the instructors of you two’s brood. They’ll never get a moments peace.”  

“Yes, I am marrying her.” 

Severus turned to face James. “I know. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Really.” 

The silence rose up around them again; this time a bit more heavy. It was Severus who broke it. “Was there a question you wanted to ask?” 

“Right,” James said, no longer sure if he wanted to know the answers to the questions that were burning up inside of him. “How long have you, um, remembered what happened that night?” 

Severus smiled. “My memory was one of the side effects of the healing potion I drank.” 

“So, why didn’t you want to hex me out of existence, or at the least, turn me in?” 

This question took a long time for Severus to answer, but then he just shrugged and ran his long fingers up James’s arm. “Maybe I wanted this more than I wanted vengeance or retribution.” 

This time James’s laugh was shared by Severus. “What have you done to the Snape I’ve known?” James finally got out. 

“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” Severus purred. 

And finally the whole picture became clear: What Severus had been afraid Lily had told him. Why James had always felt Severus’s eyes on him. Why Severus always seemed to be around at school even if nothing good had ever come from it—until now. James had thought it was because of Lily, but Severus and Lily had known better, and they had kept that secret. Now James would have a secret of his own. 

James wrapped himself tightly around Severus, wanting to hold onto this feeling, to this man, for a little bit longer—if not forever. “I really am sorry,” he said. “I do want to be a good man.”  

Severus returned his strong hold so that James could feel Severus’s heart in his chest. “You will be James.”

 


End file.
